The Trans Canada Trail Took Far Longer Than Expected to Complete - Here’s Why
“Man Plans, God Laughs”
Yiddish Proverb
Planning a Hike on the Trans Canada Trail
How long does it take to hike the Trans Canada Trail from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic? The answer is longer than you might think.
People assume that there is a neat answer to this question. They expect a clear number – a set number of kilometres and a specific number of days or weeks or months. Something that can be easily set into a hike itinerary on the calendar. People ask this question in the same way they might ask about how long it takes to fly to Europe, or drive across the country, or how long it takes to hike the Appalachian Trail.
But the Trans Canada Trail - the Great Trail, Sentier Transcanadien, le Grand Sentier - resists tidy answers and easy understandings on every level.
Even before stepping onto the path in 2019, we knew that variables would influence the timeline. Would we walk into each provincial capital or take more direct connectors? Would we trek every spur - Halifax, the Rum Runners–Harvest Moon section, the spur north of Quebec City, the long trek in Southwestern Ontario, the Sea to Sky trail in British Columbia - or remain on the most efficient line? Every choice adds distance. Every detour adds time.
Still, while planning at home, those felt like manageable variables.
What
we did not fully understand at the outset was that the Trans Canada Trail does
not simply add distance - it alters how distance is experienced. This is not a
linear path across a country but a patchwork of legacy routes, negotiated
corridors, recreational trails, road allowances, waterways, and symbolic
connectors stitched together into something national but rarely direct.
Entire prairie sections might wander twenty or fifty kilometres away from a logical line only to return within sight of where you began, while spur routes promise continuation yet never quite rejoin what feels like a main path. In some regions, crossing five hundred kilometres of geography can require walking well over a thousand kilometres of mapped trail.
None of this is wrong – it simply reflects the history of the trail’s development, access, land ownership, and the grassroots nature of how the trail was assembled. Regardless, it quietly reshapes the mental experience of movement. Progress stops feeling linear. Decision-making becomes constant. You weigh whether fidelity to the official route matters more than safety, weather, time, or sanity.
The result is a subtle but relentless mental fatigue layered atop the physical effort: not just asking how far you have gone, but whether the distance makes sense at all. Over weeks and months, this uncertainty compounds, stretching timelines not only through added kilometres but through hesitation, rerouting, recalculation, and the drag of knowing that forward does not always mean closer.
The Trans Canada Trail is not simply long. It is irregular, inconsistent, and psychologically demanding in ways maps cannot show. Distance here is not measured only in kilometres, but in patience and acceptance that you made the choice to set out.
Those Who Came Before
We looked to those who had gone before us.
Dana Meise had walked to all three oceans over the course of ten years, balancing employment, health, and the realities of life. Sara Rose Jackson had crossed from the Pacific to the Atlantic in two years of near-continuous walking. Dianne Whelan had set out believing the entire system could be completed in 500 days - yet even hiking, cycling, and paddling, her journey ultimately stretched beyond 1,000 days. Mel Vogel and Malo also discovered that the trail took longer than anticipated, as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and a global pandemic complicated their timelines.
Dana Meise had walked to all three oceans over the course of ten years, balancing employment, health, and the realities of life. Sara Rose Jackson had crossed from the Pacific to the Atlantic in two years of near-continuous walking. Dianne Whelan had set out believing the entire system could be completed in 500 days - yet even hiking, cycling, and paddling, her journey ultimately stretched beyond 1,000 days. Mel Vogel and Malo also discovered that the trail took longer than anticipated, as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and a global pandemic complicated their timelines.
We observed all of this.
And still, sitting at home with maps and spreadsheets, we assumed we could do it faster.
On paper, it seemed straightforward. We had averaged 30–35 kilometres per day on national trails in the UK, on the Camino Francés, and on the Camino Portugués. The math was simple. Check the distances. Divide by our pace. Figure out how many months, how many seasons and what that meant in terms of how many years.
It appeared manageable.
What we did not yet understand was that what appears possible on paper with a calculator bears little resemblance to the lived realities of a trail of this size. You can account for what is known, what can be expected, and a vast variety of possibilities and what-if scenarios. But the unknowns, the unexpected – they are what define a journey of this scale.
The TCT at the time was listed as 24,000 km in length, and our average on national trails in the UK, the Camino Frances, and Camino Portuguese was an average of 35 km per day. We applied this expected average day (and anticipated that we would eventually cover much more) to the Great Trail. The estimates for each section were planned as such.
What we did not yet understand was that what appears possible on paper with a calculator bears little resemblance to the lived realities of a trail of this size. You can account for what is known, what can be expected, and a vast variety of possibilities and what-if scenarios. But the unknowns, the unexpected – they are what define a journey of this scale.
The Great Trail - Hiking Estimates
Our original plans and itinerary was this:The TCT at the time was listed as 24,000 km in length, and our average on national trails in the UK, the Camino Frances, and Camino Portuguese was an average of 35 km per day. We applied this expected average day (and anticipated that we would eventually cover much more) to the Great Trail. The estimates for each section were planned as such.
This is what the math told us:
Cape Spear to St. Johns - 1 Day
NFLD (T'raillway Trail) - 35 Days
Beginning on the East Coast Trail – the easternmost section of the TCT that wraps around the Avalon Peninsula we managed to cover a mere 14 km. Not 35 km but 14 km - exact 21 km shy of our anticipated stage plan because of a freak snow storm in June – yes, June - that soaked us through and left us on a hillside on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.
Put another way, one day onto the trail, and we were already “behind”. The storm was not catastrophic, there were no injuries, just a very cold and wet night. But the next day, we retreated to St. John’s by taxi to figure out what had happened. Two days later, we returned to the ECT and would ultimately thru-hike it before starting TCT afterwards.
And the truth was that we were being taught something – the trail would not bend to our spreadsheet and to any plan we put onto it.
The delays only accumulated from then on. Often for because of things we never planned for. Post Offices that closed early for holiday weekends that meant that we had to spend weekends waiting. Campsites that were unavailable, extreme weather systems that would change our itinerary. Ferry schedules that dictated departures. A global pandemic.
Together, these realities often only gave way to minor delays – a day or two here and there. Small in isolation, but together they began to reshape entire provinces, entire hiking seasons and how we would ultimately have to approach the Trans Canada Trail as a whole.
In reality, we would spend 783 days over the course of 6 years on the Trans Canada Trail while walking approximately 18,000 km from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic Ocean.
Year 1 (2019) – Cape Spear, NFLD to Riviere du Loup, QC
Year 2 (2020) – Ottawa, Ont to Winnipeg, MB
Year 3 (2021) – Winnipeg, MB to Alberta border then Baise St. Paul to Montreal, QC
Year 4 (2022) – Montreal, QC to Ottawa, ONT then Alberta to Victoria, BC
Year 5 (2024) – Fort Saskatchewan, AB to Whitehorse, YK
Year 6 (2025) – Whitehorse, YK to Tuktoyaktuk, NWT
By the numbers, this means that in reality, our #Hike4Birds looked like this:
14,000 km in 556 days (2018-2022, ECT and Atlantic to Pacific)
3868 km in 254 days (2024-2025, to the Arctic Ocean)
Which translates into a total of 17,868 km in 783 days hiking from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic.
The calculated numbers optimistically tell one story. The lived realities on the trail tell another story.
A thru-hike generally implies completion in a single continuous season. The Appalachian Trail spans roughly 3,500 kilometres - approximately the distance from Cape Spear, Newfoundland, to Quebec City along the TCT corridor.
The scale of the Trans Canada Trail is simply different.
We realized this fully when we reached Port aux Basques in Newfoundland, having just completed the T’Railway trail across the province, which alone stretches 890 kilometres from Cape Spear. A distance slightly further than the entire Camino Francés across the country of Spain.
The scope of the Trans Canada Trail is staggering when seen in this light. One of the nation’s smaller provinces – of the ten you have to hike – is larger than a single European country and not one of the small nations either.
Part of the misunderstanding lies not only in the size of the TCT but in its purpose.
American long-distance trails such as the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail were conceived primarily as wilderness footpaths. Their aim is immersion - to remove the walker from cities and highways and carry them through extended stretches of protected mountain and forest terrain. Success on those trails is often defined by endurance through remote landscapes.
The Trans Canada Trail was never designed with that singular wilderness objective. Or if it was, then the realities of the national pathway have shifted its initial goals.
It seems to us that the TCT was envisioned as a national connector. Much like the transnational railways and TransCanada highway, the Trans Canada Trail is a corridor that links communities, provinces, cultures and landscapes from coast to coast to coast. It moves through small towns and major cities. It incorporates coastal footpaths, long rail trails, waterfront cycling routes, forest tracks, rural gravel roads, and national highways. It threads together different local pathways into a larger trail network rather than existing as a continuous backcountry route.
This distinction matters. Where the AT and PCT seek to get you out of the modern world, the Trans Canada Trail frequently carries you through it. You are not only crossing mountains and forests - you are walking through schoolyards, industrial parks, prairie towns, fishing harbours, suburban bike paths, and northern highway shoulders. It is less a wilderness immersion and more a cross-sectional exploration of Canada itself.
Because the nature and goals of these trails are so different, so too must the expectations and approach to them differ. If the goal of the AT or PCT is sustained wilderness immersion, then speed and seasonal completion become natural benchmarks as people walk them continuously from end to end. When viewed through this lens, the comparison to American trails begins to collapse.
It is not simply that the Trans Canada Trail is longer. It is that it is built differently, intended differently, and meant to be experienced differently. It was never designed as a single continuous wilderness corridor. It was designed as a national thread. And once you understand that, the question of a traditional single-season thru-hike becomes less about physical endurance and more about structural reality.
Even using the most direct land-based route between the Atlantic and the Pacific, just under 14,000 kilometres, it is simply not practical to complete it in a single hiking season. This does not account for costs, topography, supply logistics, or the unpredictability of weather events. Nor does it account for hurricanes, floods, wildfires, smoke, trail closures, accidents, or public health emergencies.
It also does not account for the nature of the trail itself.
The Trans Canada Trail is not a single constructed footpath with uniform maintenance, signage, and terrain. It is a network - a corridor linking hundreds of local trails. Coastal footpaths transition to rail trails. Rail trails transition to urban connectors. Urban connectors give way to highways, gravel roads, mountain passes, and wilderness stretches. Eight kilometres on the Fundy Footpath can demand a full day of technical hiking. Forty kilometres on northern highways may be achievable in a long, steady march.
This fragmentation and the differences between the trail segments matter.
The TCT reveals the differences between planning and living. It reveals the simple fact that you cannot reduce a nation down to a spreadsheet and hope to understand it.
We had to navigate a hurricane as we trekked across Nova Scotia. The Confederation Trail in Prince Edward Island was damaged by the same system. Winter temperatures crept in as we entered Quebec. The next year, the COVID-19 pandemic shattered timelines entirely, forcing us to hike sections of the country out of order. A police encounter in Quebec City resulted in destroyed gear. Heat waves in Manitoba and Saskatchewan pushed temperatures to 40–42 degrees Celsius. Smoke from forest fires choked prairie skies. In Manitoba, an ATV collision left us shaken. In British Columbia, forest fires closed sections of the Kettle Valley Railway. In 2023, widespread fires across the north cancelled an entire year of planned travel.
Then there was the collective exhaustion of walking the side of highways in the north as well as the unrelenting and unending topography of northern BC.
None of this includes the smaller, cumulative forces: missing signage, reroutes, washed-out sections, burnt-out trails, ferry timetables, physical exhaustion, mental fatigue, or the challenges of navigating online commentary from afar.
Every long-distance trail contains difficulty. What makes the TCT distinct is both its scale and the scope of Canada itself. The length of the trail, combined with regional variations and geographic realities of a nation as diverse as Canada. All of which come together to make everything more challenging than we anticipated.
Some factors simply can’t be planned or accounted for. Each hiker is different, each day on the trail is different, and each season is different. And these differences matter – shaping each person’s experience.
On the prairies, we walked in blistering heat. We watched thermometers climb past 40 degrees Celsius and continued on anyway. Meanwhile, Mel Vogel pulled herself through weeks of prairie mud in Saskatchewan - conditions we experienced for a single day and found frustrating enough. Which was harder? Which was easier? There is no clear answer. Each hiker encounters different weather, different trail surfaces, and different timing.
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What does this mean? The Trans Canada Trail is not a static entity. It changes with season, with funding, with maintenance, with climate, with politics, and in accord with the lives of those walking it.
What all of this reflects is the fact that almost any question you can ask about the Trans Canada Trail cannot realistically be answered in a simple and clear way. There are too many nuanced realities to make a system as complex and as long as the TCT be understood in simple terms.
How long does it take to hike the Trans Canada Trail? Well, it depends.
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The nuances, questions and possibilities along the TCT are difficult to grasp from the outside and by those who have yet to attempt it. Before we stepped out onto the trail, we certainly did not grasp them fully ourselves.
The simple fact is that long-distance trails often take longer than planned.
Not because of any failure or inefficiency, but because trails exist in the real world and are subject to all the uncertainties that can arise.
Please understand that none of this is meant to dissuade anyone thinking of undertaking this trek. The Trans Canada Trail is without a doubt one of the greatest adventures that you can undertake – it is the journey of a lifetime. It revealed the country to us in ways that no cross-country drive or trail trip on the Ocean and Canadian ever could. It revealed communities, landscapes, wildlife corridors, kindness and resilience. It truly reshaped how we understand our own country.
A plan is always necessary. Just as having a goal to aim for gives one a direction to head in. Without these, you cannot begin. But plans and goals – for all their value – are not the reality.
On the trail, regardless of your plans and intentions, there are diversions, closures, detours, celebrations, storms and change encounters. There are moments when you must re-route, moments when the trail is gone and moments when you have to stop and figure everything out again.
Each year on the Trans Canada Trail, we had to relearn the essential lesson – that our plans were only guides. We quickly had to set our plans and itinerary aside and learn to adapt and improvise day by day. Often, pushing relentlessly to meet a predetermined goal or number of kilometres would mean missing the very reason that we were on the trail in the first place.
As a trek across the country, the Trans Canada Trail simply can’t be rushed. The coastal cliffs, forests, tidal regions, prairies, Rocky Mountains, and northern boreal all demand time.
So, how long does it take to hike the Trans Canada Trail? The only honest answer is – as long as it takes.
See you on the trail!
Cape Spear to St. Johns - 1 Day
NFLD (T'raillway Trail) - 35 Days
Sydney to Truro NS - 20 Days
Truro to Halifax NS - 12 Days
PEI (150 km) - 7 Days
New Brunswick - 30 Days
Quebec - 45 Days
Ottawa to Brantford - 35 Days
Brantford to Barrie - 9 Days
Barrie to Huntsville - 9 Days
Huntsville to Sudbury - 12 Days
Sudbury to Sault St. Marie - 13 Days
N Ont Section - 12 Days
Manitoba - 43 Days
Saskatchewan - 45 Days
Southern Alberta - 39 Days
Southern BC - 55 Days
These estimates would translate into an itinerary that would look like this:
Year 1 (2019)
St. John's NFLD – Brantford, Ontario - 180 Days
Year 2 (2020)
Brantford, Ontario – Northern Ontario – 92 Days
Manitoba – 50 Days
Sask – 50 – Days
Est. total of 192 Days
Year 3 (2021)
Alberta - 50 Days
BC - 60 Days
Est. total of 110 Days
Year 4 (from June onwards 2022)
Arctic Route – Fort Saskatchewan to Tuktoyuktuk – 100 days
By these numbers it would have take 582 days over the course of four years to walk from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic – without any planned days off the trail. Analyzing the trail this way, it looks so easy and simple.
And that was the illusion. 582 days from coast to coast to coast. No planned rest days (we’d fit them in when we got ahead of schedule). Four neat years on the trail from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic.
The math makes it look logical, simple, and understandable. From this perspective, an untested formula of 500-600 days seemed generous and entirely possible.
But what we soon discovered was that 500 Days in the Wild can easily become extra months and years on a national pathway of this size. Then we stepped onto the trail, and we went from easy planning to trail realities – in a single day.
Truro to Halifax NS - 12 Days
PEI (150 km) - 7 Days
New Brunswick - 30 Days
Quebec - 45 Days
Ottawa to Brantford - 35 Days
Brantford to Barrie - 9 Days
Barrie to Huntsville - 9 Days
Huntsville to Sudbury - 12 Days
Sudbury to Sault St. Marie - 13 Days
N Ont Section - 12 Days
Manitoba - 43 Days
Saskatchewan - 45 Days
Southern Alberta - 39 Days
Southern BC - 55 Days
These estimates would translate into an itinerary that would look like this:
Year 1 (2019)
St. John's NFLD – Brantford, Ontario - 180 Days
Year 2 (2020)
Brantford, Ontario – Northern Ontario – 92 Days
Manitoba – 50 Days
Sask – 50 – Days
Est. total of 192 Days
Year 3 (2021)
Alberta - 50 Days
BC - 60 Days
Est. total of 110 Days
Year 4 (from June onwards 2022)
Arctic Route – Fort Saskatchewan to Tuktoyuktuk – 100 days
By these numbers it would have take 582 days over the course of four years to walk from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic – without any planned days off the trail. Analyzing the trail this way, it looks so easy and simple.
Illusion of Mathematics, Realities of the Trail
And that was the illusion. 582 days from coast to coast to coast. No planned rest days (we’d fit them in when we got ahead of schedule). Four neat years on the trail from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic.
The math makes it look logical, simple, and understandable. From this perspective, an untested formula of 500-600 days seemed generous and entirely possible.
But what we soon discovered was that 500 Days in the Wild can easily become extra months and years on a national pathway of this size. Then we stepped onto the trail, and we went from easy planning to trail realities – in a single day.
Beginning on the East Coast Trail – the easternmost section of the TCT that wraps around the Avalon Peninsula we managed to cover a mere 14 km. Not 35 km but 14 km - exact 21 km shy of our anticipated stage plan because of a freak snow storm in June – yes, June - that soaked us through and left us on a hillside on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.
Put another way, one day onto the trail, and we were already “behind”. The storm was not catastrophic, there were no injuries, just a very cold and wet night. But the next day, we retreated to St. John’s by taxi to figure out what had happened. Two days later, we returned to the ECT and would ultimately thru-hike it before starting TCT afterwards.
And the truth was that we were being taught something – the trail would not bend to our spreadsheet and to any plan we put onto it.
The delays only accumulated from then on. Often for because of things we never planned for. Post Offices that closed early for holiday weekends that meant that we had to spend weekends waiting. Campsites that were unavailable, extreme weather systems that would change our itinerary. Ferry schedules that dictated departures. A global pandemic.
Together, these realities often only gave way to minor delays – a day or two here and there. Small in isolation, but together they began to reshape entire provinces, entire hiking seasons and how we would ultimately have to approach the Trans Canada Trail as a whole.
2019-2025 Trail Realities – TCT by the Numbers
In reality, we would spend 783 days over the course of 6 years on the Trans Canada Trail while walking approximately 18,000 km from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic Ocean.
Year 1 (2019) – Cape Spear, NFLD to Riviere du Loup, QC
Year 2 (2020) – Ottawa, Ont to Winnipeg, MB
Year 3 (2021) – Winnipeg, MB to Alberta border then Baise St. Paul to Montreal, QC
Year 4 (2022) – Montreal, QC to Ottawa, ONT then Alberta to Victoria, BC
Year 5 (2024) – Fort Saskatchewan, AB to Whitehorse, YK
Year 6 (2025) – Whitehorse, YK to Tuktoyaktuk, NWT
By the numbers, this means that in reality, our #Hike4Birds looked like this:
14,000 km in 556 days (2018-2022, ECT and Atlantic to Pacific)
3868 km in 254 days (2024-2025, to the Arctic Ocean)
Which translates into a total of 17,868 km in 783 days hiking from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic.
The calculated numbers optimistically tell one story. The lived realities on the trail tell another story.
Can you Thru-hike the TCT?
So, let us return to the original question – can you thru-hike the TCT in the traditional sense – as you might on the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail or even the Bruce Trail?
The simple answer is no, not in the traditional sense of the definition.
The simple answer is no, not in the traditional sense of the definition.
A thru-hike generally implies completion in a single continuous season. The Appalachian Trail spans roughly 3,500 kilometres - approximately the distance from Cape Spear, Newfoundland, to Quebec City along the TCT corridor.
The scale of the Trans Canada Trail is simply different.
We realized this fully when we reached Port aux Basques in Newfoundland, having just completed the T’Railway trail across the province, which alone stretches 890 kilometres from Cape Spear. A distance slightly further than the entire Camino Francés across the country of Spain.
The scope of the Trans Canada Trail is staggering when seen in this light. One of the nation’s smaller provinces – of the ten you have to hike – is larger than a single European country and not one of the small nations either.
The fact is that the size and scope of the TCT means that it cannot earnestly be compared with US trails.
The Goal of the Trail and the Trek
Part of the misunderstanding lies not only in the size of the TCT but in its purpose.
American long-distance trails such as the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail were conceived primarily as wilderness footpaths. Their aim is immersion - to remove the walker from cities and highways and carry them through extended stretches of protected mountain and forest terrain. Success on those trails is often defined by endurance through remote landscapes.
The Trans Canada Trail was never designed with that singular wilderness objective. Or if it was, then the realities of the national pathway have shifted its initial goals.
It seems to us that the TCT was envisioned as a national connector. Much like the transnational railways and TransCanada highway, the Trans Canada Trail is a corridor that links communities, provinces, cultures and landscapes from coast to coast to coast. It moves through small towns and major cities. It incorporates coastal footpaths, long rail trails, waterfront cycling routes, forest tracks, rural gravel roads, and national highways. It threads together different local pathways into a larger trail network rather than existing as a continuous backcountry route.
This distinction matters. Where the AT and PCT seek to get you out of the modern world, the Trans Canada Trail frequently carries you through it. You are not only crossing mountains and forests - you are walking through schoolyards, industrial parks, prairie towns, fishing harbours, suburban bike paths, and northern highway shoulders. It is less a wilderness immersion and more a cross-sectional exploration of Canada itself.
Because the nature and goals of these trails are so different, so too must the expectations and approach to them differ. If the goal of the AT or PCT is sustained wilderness immersion, then speed and seasonal completion become natural benchmarks as people walk them continuously from end to end. When viewed through this lens, the comparison to American trails begins to collapse.
It is not simply that the Trans Canada Trail is longer. It is that it is built differently, intended differently, and meant to be experienced differently. It was never designed as a single continuous wilderness corridor. It was designed as a national thread. And once you understand that, the question of a traditional single-season thru-hike becomes less about physical endurance and more about structural reality.
Even using the most direct land-based route between the Atlantic and the Pacific, just under 14,000 kilometres, it is simply not practical to complete it in a single hiking season. This does not account for costs, topography, supply logistics, or the unpredictability of weather events. Nor does it account for hurricanes, floods, wildfires, smoke, trail closures, accidents, or public health emergencies.
It also does not account for the nature of the trail itself.
The Trans Canada Trail is not a single constructed footpath with uniform maintenance, signage, and terrain. It is a network - a corridor linking hundreds of local trails. Coastal footpaths transition to rail trails. Rail trails transition to urban connectors. Urban connectors give way to highways, gravel roads, mountain passes, and wilderness stretches. Eight kilometres on the Fundy Footpath can demand a full day of technical hiking. Forty kilometres on northern highways may be achievable in a long, steady march.
This fragmentation and the differences between the trail segments matter.
The TCT reveals the differences between planning and living. It reveals the simple fact that you cannot reduce a nation down to a spreadsheet and hope to understand it.
Plans, Itineraries and other Dreams
When we first set out, we wondered why Dana Meise had taken so long. We were amazed that Mel Vogel had progressed more slowly than we anticipated. We could not understand why Dianne Whelan remained on the trail well beyond her projected 500 days.
We had done the math, and it was simple. 30-35 kilometres per day. Three seasons east to west – maybe two if we really got going. One season to hike north to the Arctic Circle.
From the safety of our untested formula, 500-600 days seemed generous.
Then we stepped onto the trail.
We had done the math, and it was simple. 30-35 kilometres per day. Three seasons east to west – maybe two if we really got going. One season to hike north to the Arctic Circle.
From the safety of our untested formula, 500-600 days seemed generous.
Then we stepped onto the trail.
We had to navigate a hurricane as we trekked across Nova Scotia. The Confederation Trail in Prince Edward Island was damaged by the same system. Winter temperatures crept in as we entered Quebec. The next year, the COVID-19 pandemic shattered timelines entirely, forcing us to hike sections of the country out of order. A police encounter in Quebec City resulted in destroyed gear. Heat waves in Manitoba and Saskatchewan pushed temperatures to 40–42 degrees Celsius. Smoke from forest fires choked prairie skies. In Manitoba, an ATV collision left us shaken. In British Columbia, forest fires closed sections of the Kettle Valley Railway. In 2023, widespread fires across the north cancelled an entire year of planned travel.
And in the midst of it all, the Trans Canada Trail system itself expanded, adding approximately 4,000 kilometres to the national path – more than we had trekked in our first year. Our own plans had to adjust, and our initial itinerary had to be reworked from scratch.
Then there was the collective exhaustion of walking the side of highways in the north as well as the unrelenting and unending topography of northern BC.
None of this includes the smaller, cumulative forces: missing signage, reroutes, washed-out sections, burnt-out trails, ferry timetables, physical exhaustion, mental fatigue, or the challenges of navigating online commentary from afar.
Lived Realities on The Great Trail
Every long-distance trail contains difficulty. What makes the TCT distinct is both its scale and the scope of Canada itself. The length of the trail, combined with regional variations and geographic realities of a nation as diverse as Canada. All of which come together to make everything more challenging than we anticipated.
Some factors simply can’t be planned or accounted for. Each hiker is different, each day on the trail is different, and each season is different. And these differences matter – shaping each person’s experience.
On the prairies, we walked in blistering heat. We watched thermometers climb past 40 degrees Celsius and continued on anyway. Meanwhile, Mel Vogel pulled herself through weeks of prairie mud in Saskatchewan - conditions we experienced for a single day and found frustrating enough. Which was harder? Which was easier? There is no clear answer. Each hiker encounters different weather, different trail surfaces, and different timing.
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What does this mean? The Trans Canada Trail is not a static entity. It changes with season, with funding, with maintenance, with climate, with politics, and in accord with the lives of those walking it.
What the TCT Taught Us
What all of this reflects is the fact that almost any question you can ask about the Trans Canada Trail cannot realistically be answered in a simple and clear way. There are too many nuanced realities to make a system as complex and as long as the TCT be understood in simple terms.
How long does it take to hike the Trans Canada Trail? Well, it depends.
It depends on the condition of the path you are on. It depends on weather conditions and temperatures. It depends on route choices. It depends on whether sections have been closed, re-routed, flooded, or are on fire. It depends on whether the province stays open during a global pandemic or closes backcountry camping due to forest fires. It depends n whether you must wait for a ferry. It depends on whether you have to pay for access to a section (Charlevoix, QC and Pukaskwa Coastal Trail, Ont). It depends if you need to find skis in the winter or return a kayak at the end of a water section. It depends on whether your body needs rest. And it depends on whether you choose to stay in places that you enjoy longer.
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The nuances, questions and possibilities along the TCT are difficult to grasp from the outside and by those who have yet to attempt it. Before we stepped out onto the trail, we certainly did not grasp them fully ourselves.
The simple fact is that long-distance trails often take longer than planned.
Not because of any failure or inefficiency, but because trails exist in the real world and are subject to all the uncertainties that can arise.
Please understand that none of this is meant to dissuade anyone thinking of undertaking this trek. The Trans Canada Trail is without a doubt one of the greatest adventures that you can undertake – it is the journey of a lifetime. It revealed the country to us in ways that no cross-country drive or trail trip on the Ocean and Canadian ever could. It revealed communities, landscapes, wildlife corridors, kindness and resilience. It truly reshaped how we understand our own country.
But for all of this, it also took its toll, and there were costs - physical, mental and emotional to be paid.
Adapt and Improvise
A plan is always necessary. Just as having a goal to aim for gives one a direction to head in. Without these, you cannot begin. But plans and goals – for all their value – are not the reality.
On the trail, regardless of your plans and intentions, there are diversions, closures, detours, celebrations, storms and change encounters. There are moments when you must re-route, moments when the trail is gone and moments when you have to stop and figure everything out again.
Each year on the Trans Canada Trail, we had to relearn the essential lesson – that our plans were only guides. We quickly had to set our plans and itinerary aside and learn to adapt and improvise day by day. Often, pushing relentlessly to meet a predetermined goal or number of kilometres would mean missing the very reason that we were on the trail in the first place.
As a trek across the country, the Trans Canada Trail simply can’t be rushed. The coastal cliffs, forests, tidal regions, prairies, Rocky Mountains, and northern boreal all demand time.
So, how long does it take to hike the Trans Canada Trail? The only honest answer is – as long as it takes.
See you on the trail!
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